A blog about meditation, Dharma and activism

Climate Damage* is “too complicated” to fix? (but when the banks blow all our money, the worlds’ leaders can pull off the largest financial bailout in history in only a few days?!)

Australian artist Dave Sag has come up with this fantastic T-Shirt:
“Global Priorities Checklist”

He says: “When it comes to responding to a crisis we’re told that it’s too complicated to all act together on global warming…. Addressing poverty is, similarly, too big an issue to be able to address; and bringing about a lasting world peace is a pipe dream.

But when the banks blew all of our money the world reacted almost immediately with the largest concerted global action ever seen.

Some things are not that hard it seems.”

Thanks Dave, for putting it in the clearest possible terms. Check out Dave’s portfolio at:

You’re right Dave, this whole bailout thing really SHOULD have us thinking–

“Hey, if we can all coordinate a response to a deviously complicated and interconnected world financial system that is teetering on the brink of collapse, then why can’t we smartfolks also tackle the other things that matter (Egads! Dare we say it?) MORE than banks…. like namely how out of whack things have gotten with our weather, our wealth, and our wars?”

Just sayin.

….And by the way: the world does not have a “poverty problem”, it has a “wealth problem”. There is more than enough food and shelter and medicine to go around for everyone on earth–it just doesn’t get distributed to everyone because some of us get wayyyy more than our share (plus tons of goo-gaws and other schtuff that we don’t need). When one person in the industrialized ‘west’ consumes (in one lifetime) the same amount as 5000 people in Bolivia, or 10,000 in Bangladesh, then, as John Nichols (The Milagro Beanfield War) asks: “Does the planet groan every time a new child is born in North America?”

…And this is not to get down on ourselves, this is meant to be GOOD NEWS. You see if the problem really was in the hands of billions of disempowered impoverished people, then a response would be enormously difficult to coordinate ….. but it’s not. The problem rests with us: a few hundred thousand (maybe a few million) relatively affluent people; literate, intelligent, and probably –by and large– compassionate people.

So whatarewegonnaDo?

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*Footnote: “Climate damage” is Susan Murphy Roshi’s excellent re-naming of ‘climate change’ ; a term which she says is far too innocuous for what we are doing to the planet. Here’s a link to an absolutely beautiful letter (about the absolute [and beautiful] necessity of meditation practice) she wrote earlier this year to the Melbourne Zen Group: http://mzg.org.au/2011/03/10/a-message-from-susan-murphy-roshi/

About

A blog about meditation, activism, dharma, buddhism, and… song!

I’m a meditation teacher trained in the Burmese and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. I came into meditation practice via activism inspired by the Quaker and Catholic organizers in the peace movement, particularly those involved in the Alliance for NonViolent Action (ANVA), and the civil disobedience and industrial conversion efforts at Litton’s Cruise missile plant near Toronto. I’ve also been involved in East Timor solidarity work, and, more recently, in Indigenous solidarity work, particularly in Nunavut. I’m inspired by the social and ecological justice spirituality of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Rosalie Bertell, Phil Berrigan, Gary Snyder, Alice Walker and Elisapee Oootoova, as well as the teachings of Nagarjuna, Ajahn Chah, Buddhadassa Bhikkhu, Clare Culhane, Ivan Illich and Noam Chomsky.

Because it is an orientation all of us newcomers* could benefit from, here is Elisapee Ootoova’s Inuktitut poem-speech given to assembled dignitaries in Iqaluit during founding ceremonies for establishment of the Nunavut Territory April 1, 1999. These (translated) remarks were a marked contrast to anything else said that day; her words show a completely different mindset/philosophy than government bureaucrat-control, corporate-resource extraction, or Euro-American utilitarianism…

“Nunavut, from this moment: sea mammals, we state to you: the water, the sea do not pollute our sea–it is our home; do not make it a concern, do not contaminate it; so that we may continue to be a food resource. Our Creator has created us to provide food for you.

As fish we state to you: the lakes, look after the lakes. manage your fresh water so that we will not be contaminated and we can continue to be a food source, because our Creator has created us to be a food source for Inuit.

The mammals of the land, we state to you: please take care of the land and the vegetation; please do not contaminate us for they are our only food and our only habitat; so that we may not be a concern, and continue to be a food source, and a source of clothing. Our Creator created us, so that we could be utilized, by you.

The air of Nunavut–those of us who are birds say to you: because we fly through the air over vast distances to migrate to the Arctic–please watch over the land and the air, so that we will not be contaminated, and remain a food source for you.

Our Creator has created us so that we could be here with you,

for as long as the sun shall set,

for as long as the sun shall rise.”

(*’Newcomers’ being all of us who have been accepted here in the last 400 years by Host peoples who trace their histories back 5000-15,000 years.)